This is my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter's absolute favorite and has been for the last six months. She loves the rhyming text and the beautiful illustrations and recites the story as you read it - she knows all the words. The story has really captured her imagination. It's always the last story she reads at bedtime before going to sleep with her own special Pooh bear.

Where's my teddy is a great book I liked when I was younger and I still do now. It has great pictures and is a great story. It is a book I like to read over and over again! I am 9 now and I still love it!

This book is a fantastic read for both child and adult. We bought it when my daughter was about 1 1/2 years old and she's just fascinated by the text and pictures. We use silly voices to tell the story and have fun looking at the pictures...if you look really hard you'll see lots of tiny animals peeking down from the trees! I missed those...the one year old is more observant! A gem!

This book, just like the first "Where's My Teddy?" book, teaches with humor. The illustrations are really eye-catching and this story teaches parents and children about the importance of having friends. We love it.

My 3 year old loves the bear stories. In this story, the boy Eddie gets trapped behind the Bear's huge teddy bear. He pretends he is the huge teddy by speaking back to the real bear who is sad. The two become friends. My son laughs everytime we read this. It is a complement to the other bear book by the author, in which Eddie is left out in the woods with the Bear while his mother runs back home to fetch an item for their picnic. This is a wonderful read. Highly recommended!

This is a delightful, relational story. It's cleverly written, and beautifully illustrated, and one that became our favorite imediately! This is a book that I have shared with friends and often give as a present. I cannot say enough about this book (or author)!

this is really a roller coaster read aloud book -as mentioned by one of the other reviewers! as you read about the cuddly penguin Duddly, you get an opportunity to cuddle your own children at the end of almost each line!

and i have a confession to make- not only do my kids love the book, i too have declared it to be my favorite book! the narration is so funny and cute.

Funny illustrations, a funny story--my five year old loves it! He first had it read to him at preschool and it was a big hit with all the children in the class. We then borrowed it from the library, and now we own it. It's great fun to read out loud! We like it a lot.

Cuddly Duddly is a dramaticly powerful and moving story of Duddly, a penguin who leaves his brothers and sisters in search of a cuddle-free enviroment. The twistedly marvelous ending gives the story a romantic and comical finish. The book is an all out thriller that leaves you screaming with pleasure. It's a roller coaster in literature. You can't put the book down! It's a masterpiece!

A great read-aloud for preschool through 2nd grade (at least). I love the way Jez Alborough has used the pages so creatively by varying the drawing "frames" and the text "boxes." Kids will love how Duck fearlessly bumbles through trying to fix one thing and then another, making things worse and worse. The tension builds throughout the book until the surprise ending. Make sure you carefully examine the two-page spreads at the beginning and end of the book. The first sets the stage for what's to come, and the last one gives closure to the story. It reminds me of WATCH OUT, BIG BRO' IS COMING! by the perspective used in the pictures, and the surprise ending.

"Plop! goes the drip that drops in the cup. Duck looks down and Duck looks up. A leak in the roof. Oh, what bad luck! This is a job for...FIX-IT DUCK." Now, how to fix that roof. It's way too high to reach, so he drives over to his friend, Sheep's house to borrow a ladder. While there, he hears a "rattle, creak, and squeak." Sheep's window is stuck. Never fear...this is a job for Fix-It Duck. "He does what he can to close up the gap. He glues it, screws it, and gives it a tap." SMASH..... And so begins an entertaining chain of events story that will have little ones giggling as Fix-It Duck causes one mishap after another while trying to "help" his friends. Jez Alborough's lilting, rhyming text is engaging, and filled with energy, rhythm, and humor. Bold, bright, and busy cartoon artwork adds just the right touch to this hilarious misadventure, and sharp readers will notice the source of Duck's leaky roof trouble on the endpapers and title page (a running bathtub faucet), and will revel in the fact that they're in on the joke. Perfect for preschoolers, Fix-It Duck is a wonderful, manic romp that begs to be shared and read aloud, and a terrific sequel to Mr Alborough's Duck In The Truck.

This book My Friend the Bear by Jez Alborough is wonderfully
written . And Children will love the way a wonderful friendship
developes between a boy and a bear. This book teaching children
that no matter what your new friend looks like to look inside their heart, as Eddie the boy did when he and the bear became
friends. We all could learn alot from Eddie and the Bear about
being friendly to each other.

Lively illustrations in bright colors, combined with an engaging and increasingly aniticipatory text, make Jez Alborough's "Watch out! Big Bro's coming!" an excellent candidate for a Caldecot nod.

Especially note-worthy is Alborough's use of varying perspective to enhance the reader's feeling of escape into the story. When little bro' comes running back toward his frightened friends who are hiding in the jungle underbrush, we are looking out from our hiding spot as well.

A fine book, and one which breaks from the current trend of picture books aimed more for adult buyers than juvenile readers. I read this for story hour the day I received it and the toddler crowd loved it.

Highly recommended.

My 1 year old daughter can't go to bed without me reading/acting this book to her. It's her absoulute favorite, and I just want to know if there are any other titles with similar format by the same or different authors?

It's the bear is a frequent read in my home. All my children, ages 7 to 2, love the bear who is just as afraid of little Eddie as Eddie is of him. Infact, my (almost) 4 year old chose a teddy bear picnic theme for his birthday based on this book. A copy for each child attending made a wonderful gift.

"It's the Bear" is a fun book to read aloud to young children. It's simply written, in near-rhyme, with lots of opportunity for the reader to whimper, yell, growl, and sniff. My son loves to holler some of the lines along with me. The drawings are great, with an absolutely oversized bear grasping a huge teddy bear of his own, and eating a bite-sized picnic that he stumbles upon.

Very enjoyable, a great bedtime read. I'll be getting more by this author.

.

Eddy and Mum are off for a picnic in the forest, but Eddy's heard about the big bear that lives there. Mum assures him there's no bears around.

When all the picnic things are laid out Mum realises she's forgotten the blueberry pie and has to go home to get it.

Eddy is frightened and when he hears a voice say, "I can smell food" he decides to hide in the hamper.

Out of the woods came a big hungry bear (holding his own teddy!) and sits on the hamper to eat the picnic. After eating all the food he looks inside the hamper --- Eddy yells out for help.

Mum arrives and doesn't see the bear at first. Then he snatches the blueberry pie.

Of course our bear is harmless. A blueberry pie was the perfect desert after a picnic. It's just what he wanted. YUM YUM.

The illustrations in this book are fantastic. The large format works well, with each page varying in its layout. There's a mixture of frames; some laid out horizontally, others vertically on one page, or full panels on another. It's a very effective way to measure the pace and suspense of the story.

"It's the Bear!" is sure to become a classic. Look out for other Jez Alborough books.

Once again, Alborough does a fantastic job with his child-friendly illustrations. This simple one-word picture book invites preschoolers to read ALONE and takes them on a baby monkey's adventure to find his own mother's 'hug.' Sweet, inviting, and most importantly, an independent read for pre-emergent readers, I highly recommend it to teachers and parents of young children.

I recently purchased this book for my toddler and it was an instant hit at our house. It is truly a wonderful book about love, affection, and the bond between parent and child. The illustrations in the book are wonderful and keep my daughter's attention without fail. Since the book arrived at our house, I can't count the number of times I've had a request for the "monkey book".

So many board books are far too advanced with too many words for our youngest children, but this one is absolutely perfect. I highly, highly recommend this book for the learning opportunities, imagination opportunities, and best of all...a great hug from your little one.

My 4 year old daughter loves this book. What a great beginning reader, I think it has a total of maybe 4 words. HUG! being the main word used through out the book. We go through and try to give the word "hug" a different sound to show how the monkey is feeling. It's a great book dealing with emotions and how one's body language and voice can show emotion.

Dick King Smith, the author of MartinÕs Mice, is best known for Babe the Gallant Pig, which of course was turned into a movie that is a lot better known than any of his books. The movie is one of the best childrenÕs films ever, and the book is even better. But it does have one disadvantage. The British dialect in Babe, while charming, is so thick it is difficult for many American parents and teachers to read aloud, and for American children to follow. DonÕt get me wrong. I love Babe and have read it aloud several times. But it is not easy.

What I like about MartinÕs Mice is that it has many of the same qualities that made Babe such a joy, including the gentleness, the emphasis on kindness, and the quirky, understated humor, but without the heavy dialect. There are Britishisms sprinkled throughout the book, but they are manageable with an American tongue.

In terms of plot and character, MartinÕs Mice is not quite up to the standards of Babe. But then how many books are? Like Babe, Martin is a farm animal who marches to a different drummer. HeÕs a cat who loves mice. But he loves them as pets, not as meals. The novel focuses on how he learns to love them more as friends and equals than as pets. Martin is a sweet, gentle character, but there is no denying he does not have the charm of Babe. And the novelÕs plot seems a little disjointed. The ending felt like it sprang on us out of nowhere.

Still, my six-year-old daughter and I both enjoyed the book. If you are looking for a childrenÕs book full of nice, gentle humor and kind characters, this is a good choice.

I think Martin's Mice is a realy good book, because there's a cat who hates eating mice but his mother makes him eat at least on bit of mouse. Martin thinks they are really cute and adorable and wants to have one as a pet. When he gets older his mother stops catching them food. Martin and his brother and sister have to catch their own food. Luckily the farmer's daughter starts feeding him cat food. Martin decides that he will catch a mouse for a pet, so one day he goes and catches one for a pet. He catches a lady mouse, but what he does not know is that she is going to have children, too. I also like it because it was really funny, and it put a smile on my face the whole way through.

Book Review
By Brooklyn

The book I am reading is caled Martins mice. I relly like this book. I would recammend this book to eneone who likes cats. Is your faviorite animal a cat. In this book Martins mom catches mice but Martin dose not eat mice he keeps them as pets.

I agree with the "bad manners" review. My 22 month old son really likes the pictures, but I make up the story as I go, because the one in the book would only teach him to be rude and use other people without ever thinking about their needs. The duck gets "stuck in the muck", and enlists several other animals to help him. Once the truck is out of the muck, the duck simply drives off, leaving his helpers "stuck in the muck", without any "thank you", or help to get out. I hope the author of this book isn't driving in my neighborhood!

My son absolutely loves this book and so do I!! Poor duck is always getting into trouble and dragging his friends along with him (literally)! This time his truck is stuck in the muck. All the duck books are great to read over and over again, and they have great pictures as well. ( Fix it Duck is a must have along with this ).

I purchased this book for my 3 year old nephew, but I have to admit that I enjoyed this book just as much as him! The story is clever and fun, and the illustrations are fantastic. A really great book for young children.